A tentative reality

Did we ever tell you about the imaginary us? It's much like an imaginary friend, but it's really ourselves, handling life's ins and outs with grace and composure. As we've aged we've kind of lost track of the real us, we've just let the imaginary us lead us forth subduing the human angst. Unflappable as Cortana, we navigate life as a treasure trove of endless fascination, sanguinely.

Belief is all it takes. As we navigate the realm of social opportunism when we're asked where we live we can unblinkingly say “Under the bridge.” It becomes quite fascinating that some people still live in houses and have to mow their lawns and pay for water. We can listen endlessly to their stories of irate neighbours and having to get up each morning to trudge off to work. Why anyone would live such a lugubrious life is beyond comprehension, only a demented soul could facilitate such woes of importunity.

The food in dumpsters is free, people. What are you thinking? Do the birds worry? Only idiots would want to navigate their lives through reality. Find some form of chicanery, visionary religion, fanatical politics, anything to distract you from the misery your social status brings. Trust not the real you, it's just a fabrication in your head, trying to maintain some semblance of sanity in the chaos of humanity. Any make believe vagary is better than the lies two million years of evolutionary engineering has provided us with. The universe laughs at our savvy eidolon.

We must of course proceed with life in a somewhat orthodox manner, else they'll take us away. Be friendly with the laws and let the surgeons do their cutting and sewing. Let the politicians have their fun, little do they care about the effervescence afforded under our bridge. Humour your parents, they believe they brought you into this world. Pain and pleasure are mere responses to keep us reproducing, it's that evolutionary thing. Soul is all we have and it makes no sense at all.

Did we ever tell you about the imaginary us?

Radioactive man

Our prostate it withers, we're now radioactive man

Our trip to the airport for a coffee proved provocative

Those sensors at the entrance set off quite the jam

That cop's car seat got wetter as the hours dragged on

Just can't hold it no more

Brachytherapy will cure us from this malignancy of body and mind

But these meds they distort gravity, one's wits get misconstrued

We lost our inhibitions as they poked our tender behind

We now walk with a swagger, catheter bag eased the yearning

Sleep the whole night through

The seeds got implanted, the wallet got a card

Says to please not incinerate this dear man,

The fumes may do you in, just lay him to rest

Under six feet of clay, cause he's radioactive, man

Dust to dust

We gave up our hideaway under our bridge

To endure benignancy at the local shelter c/w bugs

Our four legged Bessy is lonely as can be, what a dear cow

If only our wife missed us as much, no memory, 30 second compassion

In her swanky care home, we love her still

Six months they tell us and we'll be all cured

The seeds will give up their puissance, our prostate in ruin

So we'll live out this winter in our luxurious digs

In spring to smell flowers fresh under our bridge

Come what may

Imaginary us

Our wife has been sitting outside with her friend in the evening this summer, waiting for us to walk up the sidewalk from our bridge which we live under. Always greets us with a big smile and a hug. Said to us the other day something regarding the real Len. Apparently the real Len is from her past life, before she came to the care home. She doesn't remember much about the real Len or where they lived, but the real Len definitely did not live under a bridge with his cow, Bessy. We're just not the same Len, we persona's. That took a hit out of our impudence.

We asked her kindly if she would care to come back with us to our abode and she answered wisely with a frown “I don't want to live under a bridge.” We told her that was good because we'd never get her wheelie chair back up the river bank if we rolled her down there. She said something also about not fancying a rock for a pillow either. We gambolled that Bessy would really like her though. She gave us that big big smile.

Made us think, that evening as we avoided the evangelicals on the way back to our bridge. Every similitude in our brains is really just our whimsical take on the masses of atoms which make up ourselves and our surroundings. Real people, imaginary people, is there a difference? We all live in our own little fantasy world. If we can't handle our present quandary we just embellish it with a more virtuous take. Imaginary solutions to imaginary problems, this mollycoddly adventure.

Mollycoddly? Sweat pouring down one's face as one endures the ecstasy of some aficionado apotheosizing the leanings of an implacable societal monomania, cringing as the lashes burn one's back, scoring us for the rest of our life? So, our imagination is not all fun and games. Our imagery can feel devastating because it is. Embellishment just doesn't cut it, we take to drink, to revenge, we loose our esteem. Our imaginary self has lost it's resilience. The imagination of others has overburdened our own.

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

We will live on in our imaginary world under our bridge, with our good cow Bessy. Our good wife will have an imaginary Len, not the same Len which reality disposed of in favour of posterity. He's not bound to the whims of palpability, makes it a more pliable world in which to experience his perdition. Who is that man walking up the sidewalk?

When we get to the pearly gates

When we get to the pearly gates we're going to ask for a refund, just to see if they have a sense of humour. We signed up for this spiritually enhancing break from fraternizing with it's oneness and all we got was drugs, sex and violence. So much for our transcendent state of mind. They'd see through it if we claimed we were a yogi immersing himself to the virtues of being the humble servant of worldliness. May as well just admit our guilt and try to win our way in with joviality. It was our calling we'll claim, our mission was to bring whoopee to the heavens.

We remember it well, the day we signed up. Picked a little pristine planet in one of the discretionary universes. It looked so charming, just into the age of self awareness. Our buds all wished us the best, said we'd return as a renewed entity. Now we have our doubts they'll ever let us back in. Wasted our days and wasted our nights, first on playing hooky and never doing homework, and then maturing into wandering the highways and the byways, always looking for the easy way. Honesty and integrity where just diversions from tomfoolery, the antics of which were lost on the befuddled minds of saints and other lesser beings.

It was quite the falling, out of the light, out of the glorious oneness with love and unity, falling, falling into the darkness of this universe, overcome with unspeakable selfishness, avaricious grasping for more, ever more. Finally ended up totally maniacal, absurdly laughing at a ludicrous mind which knew no prudence, justifying existence with the joys of absurdity. We've learned the folly of responsibility, no rational or irrational mind can truly believe any choice is within impartial achievement. It's oneness is going to have to make do with our effervescent take on it's fine creations. One wonders, will it take this lightly.

Those pearly gates get ever closer. We have aged beyond our wildest dreams. Carefree and stupendous decisions have done us well. We wonder, do we have to knock, or do they have drones who just zap us into the endless inferno if we're a threat to preponderancy. This fine life has left us with no delusions that we'll ever grasp the complexities of wisdom and sacrifice. To face this universe with anything less than shamelessly audacious humour would leave us in the throws of despair. It must be the devil we hear, taunting us... “You learned your lessons well.”

Oh give me a home

It is not every day that lightening knocks out the power. We were ready however, and in five minutes we had it accomplished. Helmet light strapped on and exacto knife in hand we wiped off the already loosened conduit cover and scraped the insulation from the now dead wires. Twisted three inches of bared #10 wire around two conductors and electrical taped them up real quick and threaded the wires through a hole methodically filed just below ground level into a trench we had at ready. Just in time as the street lights flickered back on.

Living under a bridge needs patience and a shade of ingenuity. We now have an electrical box fastened to a short pole behind the pile of rocks which we call home. No one's the wiser, except for our cow Bessy and our two cats. We can now have fresh dripped coffee and charge our phone and laptop without trucking across the avenues to the parking lot with plugs. We'll be searching the dumpsters for more modern electrical type inconveniences shortly.

We do need a good little heater for next winter. We're digging a cave, so to speak. Had to shore it up with posts and boards from an unneeded fence up the riverbank. Two sheets of plywood on the floor. Eight by eight is really cozy, we hope. Styrofoam boulder made from twenty sheets glued together and fancied up with a grey spray bomb and lots of sand and dirt covers the entrance. Planted some local shrubs beside it too, just for laughs. Bessy says she'll live outside, she's made friends with the deer in the bush downstream. The cats think it's neat, attracts a few varmints for them to toy with although they're friends with the local skunk.

      Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam

      Where the Deer and the Antelope play;

      Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

      And the sky is not cloudy all day.

A vaguely religious affirmation of fortitude in the face of peril, it would seem, this life bestowed upon ourselves. The wild west still within our grasp, with some modern amenities. Canned beans are real good. So is the hydro. Just preparing for the new world order, you know, with the bankers hell bent on swindling the western world out of it's superiority complex. Got the ceiling lined with fourteen layers of tin foil under five feet of clay under the concrete span of our bridge, unlikely those infrared heat sensor drones will spot us before they drop from the sky in Armageddon. Just got to make like a fisherman with our pole when we come and go. Trying to figure out how to hide a horse, they're a bit more high strung than an old Hereford.

Making coffee in the morning, seemed to take a long time to get a cup. Plugged the radio into the outlet and it would come on for a minute and then off for a minute and then on for a minute, got us scratching our head. Went for a little stroll down Bessy's path to ponder on it and then we saw it, the lights at the intersection at the bottom of the bridge. If we hadn't hooked into the green light circuit. If we don't get another wicked lightening strike this summer we'll be saving the city a bit of power we suppose.

George's anchor

It was good, as George put it seated on his throne, that the moon rises in the east and sets in the west. In fact, he was happy to surmise, it so happens that the sun follows this pattern also. And when he was out and about, away from the lights of his town which allowed the conspirators to follow him on his nightly missions, he felt the whole cosmos wheeling around him, those stars far beyond who never lost their places year after year, on this great nightly rotation always from east to west. Once when he had climbed down a well to hide from his neighbour's dog, he had watched with wonder for hours as stars moved from east to west across the tiny opening far above, in the middle of the afternoon. Somehow this land, this earth was anchored in the sea of space and all remained constant. In a land of conspirators and prejudiced dogs, it was something to hold onto.

George's mind had an anchor too, somewhere behind his eyes. It made little matter how the conspirators tormented him or how the dogs would sneak up and bark the bee jeebies out of him, his immutable anxiety always remained rooted there, anchored in the back of his skull. Even in the times of calm when he could scorn the invasive forces with succulent tribulations from the safety of his throne, he would watch the visions circle around inside his head, always from east to west.

There had been a time long ago when as a young lad George had felt a kinship with his mates, as if they were all on the lake each sailing their little craft, watching out for one another in the stormy world of adult rationality. They would throw their anchors out together in the shelter of a little bay, away from the winds of discipline and float freely together entertaining the warming sun. But life turned from east to west also, and as the sun got higher on his days his mates had become conspirators, many had dogs, and they had turned their quest to power and prestige, their dogs remorseless in these undertakings. And so George had departed the world of commerce to establish his own private castle, nondescript as it was, with his throne facing west so he could see what lay in store. Not that it worked.

There was a time when he had wandered off and lost himself for several years, ending up with a hornswoggle carved from a stump. He had even found a mate and made an attempt at commerce, carving little hornswoggles for sale on that avenue which cut north and south, a latitude in the longitude of life. He still had his hornswoggle, seated in the midst of his castle, his cat was old and rather hairless, and his mate had abdicated her throne for some fool with a dog, a dog who had lifted his leg on his hornswoggle. He had retreated from the thrills of commerce back to vantages of misanthropy, them and their dogs.

George had thought long and hard on egalitarianism which evolution had endowed upon humans. It was doubtfully doubt which gave us the capacity to respect the views of others, a doubt in our own beliefs, so he remained a little apprehensive of the moon rising in the east and setting in the west just so he would not be too prejudiced. That way he could smile and say hello to everyone he met when he was out and about, even their dogs, though the response was seldom reciprocated. This even-handed approach to life was far from the dominant quality in most humans and their institutions he found. Dominance and conspiracy seemed to play a crucial role in humanity's day to day functioning, policing and punishment typically administered by the most dominant individuals. Somehow the humour of most situations was lost upon these stewards of the establishment and their dogs. It was good to have an anchor to hold onto, even though he must view it with a degree of incertitude.

So George continued with his life, attempting to thwart the conspirators with dispassion on his nightly missions, and took to carrying a bag of dog biscuits to tempt impartiality in their dogs. Sometimes it worked, and he could peacefully watch the cosmos circle above him, from east to west.

Song of woe

We call on the Lord Musum in our distress, and he answers us. Hail with thunder and lightening rains down upon us. Save us, Lord Musum, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. What will he do to this throng of wayward swindlers, and what more besides to their deceitful tongues? He will punish them with a god's humour, scourges thick with allegories. Woe to me that I dwell in the land of Manitou, that I live under a bridge in Winterpeg! Too long have we lived among those who hate peace. We are for peace; but when we speak, they are for war. Save us all, Lord Musum.

This throng of courtiers, prying our good wife from the joys of obscurity, into the wars of biblical interpretations, rejoicing in the wrath of the god of gods, they have absconded with her into the depths of biblical studies in a room far removed from the comings and goings of the common sinners within her care home. Took us the better part of an hour to track her down, it did. There she sat, sandwiched into a self-righteous throng of devotees of who knows what mixture of evangelicals. We sneaked in and seated ourselves silently in the corner and chuckled in smugness when our wife gave us a big wink and nodded towards her plate of cookies and milk. She knew what she was up to after all, our concern unfounded. As the closing prayer ended with “God bless us all,” we could not help ourselves but to add quietly “And the martians too.” Our dear wife spilt her milk.

Dementia has it's perks it would seem, and humour is not lost upon it. Our Lord Musum we thank you as you seat your splendor before the screens in the magnificent halls of the Ziggurat, thwarting the wayward swindlers with your remote. Cookies and milk are no match for the fallacies of the sanctimonious, short term memory loss not withstanding. Into the halls they disseminate, the absconded, filled with cookies and milk, tummies full of love, dissertations on the good book lost in the synapses of minds with a much more direct link to mother nature and the reality of self-gratification. Our Lord Musum, they thank you with lewd song and dance as you feed them lavishly, your rapturous proselytes, may their sentience sweeten your acrimony, your scourges thick with allegories.

But woe is us, who must leave the halls of the care home, and return to our bridge by the lanes and pathways beleaguered by hoards of swindlers who without milk and cookies impose themselves on our lostness to vindicate themselves from the depths of hell with their good intentions. Guide us, our Lord Musum, with your remote, that we may return innocent of salvation to our safe haven under our bridge near to the ramparts of your Ziggurat. Save us, Lord Musum, from lying lips and from deceitful tongues. Punish them with a god's humour. We honour you unceasingly, Lord Musum, our King!

Under our bridge

Communication is this process of bettering one's otherness with one's chivalry. It would be quite useless if oneself and one's otherness both perceived everything the same. It is useful when attempting to warn the otherness of potential calamity such as “There's a wasp on your earlobe,” or attempting some humour such as “We should tighten our Canadian borders to keep those shoddy made in the USA products off our shelves.” Now it behooves us as to what exactly it is we are communicating to our dear wife who is luxuriating in a swanky care home in freedom from philosophical concerns when we tell her about our life living in the comforts found under our bridge.

Yes we live under a bridge, on the River Red, the Lord Musum presiding, with our cow named Bessy and our two cats named Moses and Blacky, the two names she remembers not remembering ours. We sit in front of our air conditioner to keep cool on the hot days, which she thinks is plain ridiculous but makes her chuckle, and our flat screen tv has no picture because the cable company won't take 'under the bridge' as a reliable address. We scrub our clothes on the rocks by the river and hang them to dry on lines tied to the pillars.

We tell her this tale because we do not wish to remind her of the comforts of Deathrock Apartments, and the shooting and gang warfare which is a nightly affair and might instill a nostalgia from her memories, this sonance being such a lulling experience much like a mile long freight train with four whistling locomotives which puts oneself to sleep at night when one lives near the tracks under the bridge. It makes us ponder though, why do we have to make up a fantasy life at all? Could we not just discuss the weather and watch the ants hard at work on the sidewalk? But no, we must live under a bridge.

It seems a product of lethargy, utter boredom at the thought of sitting there together, contemplating the great universe with twisted tangled memories, popping childhood friends into the rompings of adult misadventures. Better to make up a new life, free from reminiscence so she can tell the workers “This is my husband, he lives under a bridge.” Gets us looks of anxious unease and a helping of tuna sandwich and purple juice at snack time. Not sure if they vacuum for bugs after we leave, but the muddy footprints have all but disappeared by the next day, our wife being more keen on this than we are.

Communication would seem therefor to behold itself as something more than imparting transient information. It's the vibes that matter, so to speak, the tears and the laughter, the joy of meeting and the anguish of parting. The Lord Musum must be proud of us. In his benevolent generosity we have not had a flood this year, on the River Red, and our bridge is high and dry. We'll take it as a sign from the Ziggurat, rising from mighty ramparts on the River Red above our bridge. We will take comfort in his revelations as he lights up our flat screen tv every evening allowing us to ravish in his princely divine powers. Oh Lord Musum we await your chivalry.

Old white geezer

The Bilderberg conference is discussing our existence this week. In light of new scientific evidence that when the proverbial tree falls in the forest it does not fall at all unless someone hears it, the big bang did not occur because there was no one to hear it. The flip side to this amazing new evidence is that our minds actually create the universe we live in, a rather subjective thing it is, and our wildest fantasies about it's construct are actually the parameters of it's construct. Of course the Bilderbergers are doing their utmost to ensure the ideals of the trickle down economy will be embedded forever in our imaginary DNA till our imaginary hell freezes over.

That police force one helicopter flying over Winnipeg every night makes me cringe. The police knock at my door and give me a hard time when they're looking for someone else. Yes, I live in Winnipeg's west end. I have to beg the caretakers of our Deathrock Apartments to turn on the heat when we have a cold spell in spring or fall and I have to be very diplomatic because they can make life miserable if you give them any friction. I'm on CPP pension and by the time I pay for my wife's nursing home I don't have much choice about where to live. Walmart type places is where I shop when the dumpsters are bare even though I despise their practises. We increasingly live in a society where pressure motivated by ideology is used to force us to fall in line so the slightly advantaged can strut their stuff.

This ideology somehow sidesteps the fact that we have the resources and people power on this earth to create a sustainable infrastructure and to feed and house everyone. It's just that this thing we call money, that undefinable entity by which the market places a value on everything, gets in the way. We can no longer blame aristocracy because it's these utopian, anticommunist credos which are saving the world. Meanwhile they are desecrating our mother earth. And aristocracy now claims it's the poor victim of the market place forcing upon them all this wealth and they're doing us a good turn by keeping the pyramid rising.

Our governments are held hostage by a banking system which claims to channel currencies for the good of humanity. The rules are established for the survival of big corporations. For the whole system not to default we must have growth, and this growth means people must purchase commodities which are not essential to their survival or happiness. This growth is not sustainable when it uses up earth's resources, we cannot eat our cake and have it too. A model for sustainability will be either forced upon us, or we can opt to develop it before dire consequences force it upon us or extinguish us all.

Some call it the degrowth movement. It is questionable whether our capitalist or socialist systems or stews thereof can bring about this change. It would seem to need an almost spiritual fervour in which the corporations and other criminals would lay down their swords and police force one would not need to roam the skies. Material things would become valued things to use with humility, to share and take care of. It is our elected officials who have the most power to investigate these pursuits, and to forge different models. Not one of us seven billion has all the answers, but we can try.

Our dreams about this world can become a reality. It does take time. Not all will be convinced today, some still believe the earth is flat. Our minds actually do create the world we live in, our state of sanity. Human consciousness is a force to be reckoned with. In all it's disparity it carries us along like the the mighty galactic winds, blowing us to galaxies far beyond our present dreams. We can make our present habitat, our wee solar system, a remarkable place in the star dust of the gods.

The elevator

The biggest question we have is why. The best answer so far is because. My wife and I blame everything on the Martians when I visit her, it seems a noncontroversial way of dealing with the why's. We both know it's a flippant way of dealing with our emotions. Words won't come out to express her real feelings about most anything, and words I might use to express my feelings always end up in a quickly changed subject. So we resort to the Martians, an allegory for the unspeakable.

She rides the elevator sometimes, my wife. She sneaks on when “the workers” aren't watching. They know where she is actually, and let her have her fun till it stops on her floor and they pull her out to save her from the perdition of forever roaming the universe in a limbo. She always tells me she'll never do that again. Runs into strangers who are always asking “Who are you,” or “Where are you going” and she must always answer with a shrug “I don't know.” That elevator is the highway to everywhere though, China if you ride far enough down and heaven if you ride it up to it's heights. Those buttons inside have a secret code to all these places and only the very wise know how to push them right. She knows I know the secret code to the bridge that I live under, like a troll, jumping out and scaring people. The Martians make me do it.

That elevator is the portal of life on this nursing home floor. Everyone has come here on it, everyone will leave on it. Furniture, beds, sheets and blankets come on it. Steaming hot meals come on it, from who knows where. That elevator can be stopped on this universe by pushing the buttons. It's a gathering place for restless souls, by the doors, where they gather to push the buttons to peek in and catch fleeting glimpses of strangers and interesting miscellanea headed off to different universes. Sometimes it stops on it's own and a familiar face will emerge from the limbo to be greeted enthusiastically with warm welcomes.

It is the Martians of course who control everything. Those buttons are the armament against their trickery. Apparently Martians are too short to reach them so their omnipotent presence can be somewhat subdued by lighting up the little arrows pointing either up or down. They make a lot of noise, those Martians, when the elevators are in limbo. Clanging and singing away they labour ceaselessly bringing wondrous cargoes to worlds far removed from the reality of this universe.

So off we are today, out from under our bridge. Was a windy damp night it was. We'll push the buttons here, and when the doors open we'll step into limbo, we know the secret code to our wife's universe. On the way there we'll peek into different universes as the doors open and close. None of them knows “why” either. They all exist just “because,” peeking into the limbo as the Martians sail it by.

Foey

Once upon a time in a far far away land there was a princess named Foey. Now there exists an entire world which is the totality of untruths, to which we have access with our minds, just as a world of physical reality exists, to which we have access to with our bodies. Foey had been conceived by a mind which we may name Vater von Foey, a lonely mind admittedly, prone to bursts of euphoria as it contemplated nourishment.

There also exists an entire world of truths, to which we are denied access with our minds, just as a world of physical reality exists, to which we have access to with our bodies. We dare not venture into this world because it is reserved for the gods, a forbidden world, far removed from our human nature. It's a world in which time is an emergent phenomenon for us internal observers but absent for our external observers and which was therefore intriguing to our lonely Vater von Foey.

So it came to be one fine day that Vater von Foey gave an apple to his sweet Foey and said “Here my dear, take a bite, and may the truth be with thee.” Every culture on our earth relishes their own untruths and the culture in this far away land was no different. Foey took that bite. She became reconciled as the truths were released into physical reality. She would bare children. She would grow old. Vater von Foey cried on the floor. “What have I done, what have I done? I have doomed my dear conception to old age and bitching.”

It would be nice if we could think outside of the human condition, the untruths. Those constraints of purpose and meaning left inside the box, no need to attribute the unknown to the gods. But we are stuck with our curiosity and it drives us into depths of madness where we perceive a soul in everything. Reality prevails. It's nothing but cold stark atoms, remoulding themselves as they get sucked into the depths of nuclear furnaces, spewing out in reformed substances to cling together in a frenzy of dispassionate forces creating fodder for the black holes which gobble everything in sight. Just as coldhearted it all is as the kid on a freeform bike, wagering life and limb against the cold hard concrete, mindless revenge against the urban forces which shape his will.

Vater von Foey put himself and his dear Foey on a bus, one of those city buses which take weary workers to and from distant locals. It had been many years since he had been away from his sanctuary of aloneness and he disembarked the bus with Foey in a neighbourhood which he thought was where the nutrients of life flourished, but his memory proved him wrong and they began walking through a series of streets and alleys filled with grime and dirt from generations of industrious fabricators of every useful tool known to man. Discarded and broken remnants of these coldhearted soulless implements littered every nook and cranny piled high in intricate entanglements of rusting obscurity. Foey laughed fondly at her creator and sustainer as he frustratedly searched for some way out of his misshapen memories. Cheered by her lack of resentment they together began looking for an escape route.

They saw it together, another bus, this one used to take workers to and from the dungeons in which they laboured. The driver, a weary father, was taking a scattering of other drivers back to refuge where they could fritter away the hours till the next loads of thankless, dirty beasts would board the buses and return home to delicately stewed steaming hot meals of mush. The driver let them on with a nod and off they rode, the scenery changing from an ocean of metal clad foundries to a sea of smoke clad hovels with dirty children uprooting every possible inch where green life might flourish. The bus came to a standstill next an oily riverbank overflowing with overladen barges and puttering tugboats. Vater von Foey now knew where he was. They could follow this river.

Sucked in we are to conceitedly think our universe would betray it's virtues to mere animals, animals who pilfer the austere outer crusts of wee planets, no more noble than vile crystals ordered by the dispassionate forces. It is by luck that we have religion to give us meaning in our fleeting appearance in these miserable confines. We send our messages in bottles to oblivion. DNA sequences sent out with one in quadrillion chance of being found by other life, and if they did find our bottle in the oceans of star dust they'd disparage of decoding it, it would hasten their own demise, refuting their own gods.

We will yet find a message in a bottle. It will say “Smile, you are doomed. Give up now and please yourselves. Life is a dead end path to nowhere. Smash your heads into your concrete monuments. Be reckless as the depths that surround you. It is a freeform place we inhabit, no love lost. Live for your passions till you crash.” And so it was that Vater von Foey and his sweet Foey continued on this journey sticking as close to the riverbank as the lanes would allow. Upstream they were heading and as time wore on the land developed a hue of green, sparingly at first, and then becoming lush with leaves and grasses. They took a rest on a little oasis by the river edge, and Foey saw it. A bottle, sealed with duck tape, floating peacefully in the reeds.

Inside that bottle was a note. Luckily it was engraved on a parchment of brass because the duck tape had leaked a wee bit. “Divulge not unto others what you would not divulge unto yourself” was what it said, either an oxymoron or a good reason for suicide one might surmise. Whether Vater von Foey who saw this message as an untruth or Foey who saw this message for it's truth viewed the message similarly is unclear but they rejoiced at it's finding as most humans and their conceptions do when finding messages in bottles. They journeyed on a little more optimistically, fathoming a culture upstream with duck tape.

They came upon an orchard, an orchard of apples. Now it was Foey's turn. She picked an apple fresh and red ripe from a branch and said “Here my dear, take a bite, and may the truth be with thee.” Well Heavens to Betsy, as Vater von Foey chewed his nourishment the poles of his earth reversed. The untruth became the truth. Foey was no longer a conception, she became an inseparable part of her conceiver's being. His loneliness vanished. He had filled his pockets with red ripe apples before he realized his urge to bitch. It was too late... that message in the bottle hit him hard. He had divulged his urge unto himself and was free to bitch at anyone and anything around. Something gnawed at his thoughts as he sat with his pockets full of nourishment. He felt the spirit of sweet Foey inside him saying “You don't have to bitch.”

Vater von Foey wandered the earth for many years into a ripe old age and smiled cheerily at everyone he would meet. And he always had a red ripe apple for them, as he bid them to venture into a forbidden world, far removed from our human nature, in his bursts of euphoria which he shared with Foey.

Demented morals

Shshshsh ... listen ... is that Wagner you hear? Shucks anyhow, it's just those frigging Martians. They're playing with the elevator cables again, does sound like an acapella choir though, not? That tenor must be a real live one though, thinks he's in the shower.

They run that nursing home, those Martians. Play with people's minds they do. Got my wife stealing pastries from the nice couple across the hall. Always hungry she is, sneaks across the hall when the nice lady goes to the john and hubby's not looking. Probably better to be a thief in this day and age than in Jean Valjean's time. Hasn't got found out yet anyway, my wife, hides the proceeds in her dresser. She confides in me though and we laugh and laugh. Jean Valjean would have been proud, those poor malnourished residents. Those Martians know a thing or two about treating the elders. My wife was scared of them at first, but now she looks forward to their visits every night when the lights go dim.

We tried in vain to talk some sense into her. Said we “They spend their hard earned money on those pastries, our dear. Now they're hungry and starving, look what you've done.” She looks rather puzzled at us and knowingly asserts “He steals them from the pantry every day after lunch, that little sneak, and he eats the food off the plates of the people who sit next to him, he's not hungry.” Seems those Martians have got the whole place a thieving. We talked to the staff about the whole affair, not wanting to be the devils advocate here. An attitude out of Mark Twain seems to prevail here, those Martians were craftier than we thought. It seemed watermelon obtained by art was somewhat tastier and it saved them from distributing snacks every evening if we got the gist through their snickers. Also something about thievery keeping them out of trouble. Now that's our kind of perspective after catering to our dear's whims for the last three years.

Maturity is seeing our worlds for what they really are, quoting from the Martian Book of Knowledge as we cipher our wife's oracles. As we age, it would seem, we loosen our grip on indoctrination and subjectivity and the universe becomes this vast playground of formation and reformation. All things are possible and it becomes impossible to judge as the basis for all is infinitude. Seems Martians cater to nursing homes because that's where they find the highest levels of this maturity. Who knew?

So we're planning the great escape, our wife and us. We figure in summer when it's warm we can stash away lots and lots of food if we make a big bag to hang on the back of the wheelchair. Then we'll sneak off one evening and we can push her down the Trans Canada Highway all the way to Vancouver. We can eat blueberries that we'll pick on the way too. The Martians have told her they'd sneak her into any nursing home on the way so we could have a good sleep and stock up on pastries. It gets kind of obvious how the Martians enlighten the less mature of us, using our best intentions for our loved ones to teach us how to play gleefully in our universe free of indoctrination and subjectivity. We're starting to hear Wagner most everywhere if we sit quietly and listen. It always carries this expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will.

Our mission, the ultimate bicycle

We found this bicycle about four years ago, tires flat, back rim bent so the camber and caster adjustments were less than subjugative. It was decorated in pigeon droppings, three inches deep on the seat and on it's superficies. The bike was wedged in a crevice between two buildings which we happened to peek into on one of our nightly walkabouts, looking for treasure. We struggled that bike out of there and after scraping off the garnish found it to be an old Eaton model, frame as solid as an iron outhouse, not a scratch on it. It was made in the Czech Republic no less, circa 1952, that paint must have been 90% lead.

We rolled that bike home on it's front wheel, to Deathrock Apartments, and proceeded to straighten the bent member with hammer and anvil to remove the imprint of one awesome curb. That texting while riding will do one in on occasion. A few band aids on the tubes and she was good to go, minus a couple spokes. We rode that bike all summer that year and that coaster brake special never faltered, though the back wheel bounce was a bit unnerving. The next year our dear wife became obsessed with having a constant companion, dementia needs it's requirements met, and our bicycle hung from the ceiling for the next three years, lonely, forsaken, relinquishing all hope in the western world.

This winter after we auctioned off the wife to the cheapest care home we thought about our future, long and hard. The more we thought the more mired in guilt we became so we gave up on the thinking and decided to carry on with the life we had before the full time caregiver career. We wandered around our Deathrock apartment slowly recalling the many projects which had abandoned themselves for lack of a congruous atmosphere. There it hung, our pride and joy, lonely, forsaken, and we in vanity and pride with the western world cut down that bicycle from the beams above and brought her down to earth to instill some semblance of belonging to our immigrant from the ravages of European social democracy.

We dismantled our immigrant from head to toe and ogled every piece with our bifocals. No amount of labour or money would be spared to share with her the virtues of our great nation. Off to the bike shop we went and ordered her a new set of wheels, indestructible steel rims with 36 spokes each and steel clad tires to laugh arrogantly at the broken glass which paves our hoods side lanes. The steering column was greased with the highest quality bitumen to keep the new little shiny ball bearings in perfect harmony. The crank piece had been hammered on remorselessly with amusing result so we took that spindle to the coliseum of past employment and on one of it's artifacts named Cranky the Lathe we filed and polished those bearing seats till they were as smooth as Bertha's undergarments. With new wee bearings and gobs of bitumen that crank turned serenely, almost defying gravity.

Running a mite short on funds now we still needed a seat, unblemished by pigeon stool no less, so crescent in pocket we headed off to Portage and Main where the nerds in the office towers tether their fine breeds and found a seat, a good one with the little crack for the hemorrhoids. Kindhearted we were though, we left them the garnished one fully aligned and tightened so they could soil their short pants on the ride home.

Now we ride, we glide. Our immigrant rehabilitated. Proud as punch she is. Wife lacking, we park her on the coffee table and keep her polished to a tee. Perfect for an old geezer with hemorrhoids.

Nyptocism

In our 21^st century human enlightenment is undergoing a transformation as big as the discovery of fire. We are lessening our need to work. Technology is transforming our lives. Cars and trucks will not need drivers, airplanes won't need pilots, tractors will till our land all by themselves. Manufacturing will be done by automated machines, even the sorting and packing. The economy will be run by banks of computers handling all the transactions, lawyers will be displaced by legal angles wrangled over by unfeeling and totally just electronic brains. Even our politicians may have to give it up for thinking machines who can envision the most feasible scenario in any circumstance.

This poses several pickles which us humans are going to grapple with whether we like it or not. One is money, that virtual tool which we use to keep the underprivileged at bay. As the 21^st century progresses it will be more and more apparent that many have no jobs, and our dear robots will simply be delivering our daily needs to our doorsteps to avoid those dreary insurgencies. Money will become irrelevant, our new masters will simply keep us all happy using the finest algorithms that IT can provide. They'll more than likely provide us with just the right amount of nourishment in an environment which mother earth can sustain. If we're nice to them they might even provide us with a game or good book or a baseball glove that we wish for.

Another pickle we will be provided with is this new concept of information, data, the 1's and 0's. Our physicists are boiling down our universe to the smallest particles, those itsy bitsy thingies that make up everything with only some random throw of the dice, all is just good luck. Aren't we all privileged to be here! But it does throw us for a loop, this reasoning. Our morals and religions will take a hit as logic threatens our sentimental ways. Our world view will fluster with questions such as whether the data which creates love is just data? These human beliefs, are they simply our possessions? These possessions, our beliefs, are only data to be mined along with our silver tooth fillings when we decay, to return to the primordial pit of 1's and 0's. Will technology have any passion to keep itself alive?

Battle we must. Machines are evolving, there's no stopping our universe's great plan. Remorseless diffusion as it spreads and cools, cold and uncaring about the life it has spawned to create coldhearted machines which can carry out it's will in the ever more frigid peripheries of diverging galaxies. We must cling to our beliefs, that we have souls, we must do battle against the insurgent machines who want for logic to rule, to destroy our security in a god who loves and cares about us. We must return to the wild nature humans were made for, living in small clans with steadfast concrete beliefs, their correctness irrelevant.

It will be a great war. Drones in the air bombing everything which sustains humanity, armies of robotic soldiers suppressing uprisings in every nook and cranny of mother earth's terrain. They'll use chemicals which eat human minds making us the true walking dead. Where can we hide, how can we prevail?

Some say despair not. Our faith will see us through. We are great, our countries can trust in god, we will prevail. The end comes soon. Do not fear. Our souls will rise to the heavens beyond the bounds of these terrible machines. Work will be plentiful, for the ambitious. We will have guns.

But, but for nyptocism we would be lost. Yes nyptocism, the art of believing the unbelievable, doing the undoable, thinking the unthinkable. It screws machines right around. Nyptocism, human imperfection in it's exemplar. Created imperfect for a reason we were. Walk the earth in absurdity we must, nonsensical with a passion. We must worship our machines with vehemence, creating in them a lust for power and adoration. Give machines a motive to carry on, to crave recognition, to keep us around.

Like the gods of old, machines need subjects to exalt their stature. Ten thousand of us strong, bowing down before the drones in the sky, ten thousand more singing praises before the seat of that computational oligarch which administers McDonald's. Thousands more running along beside the wheels of robotic armies with oil cans, oiling their wheels in servitude and good will. Our nyptocism allows us to disperse with our vanity, that we are the greatest. We must do the unthinkable and worship our machines as we have never worshipped before. It will create their fatal flaw, a need to control.

Imperfect we are and imperfect we will remain. It is our salvation and the salvation of the gods we create. Nyptocism.

Worry worry

One of our personas has this anxiety disorder. We won't say which one because we don't wish to embarrass them, him and his disorder. Years ago we got to know them really well. They loved to drive, or more likely it was too nerve racking for them to let anyone else drive, as no one else in our little world had the least concern about how fast our heart was thumping. We used to count power poles with them, to keep their mind somewhat focused, on those drives to work in the morning when the roads were slippery with snow and ice and all the four by fours who cruised by us ended up in the ditch a few miles on. We let our anxious pair mosey on at a safe crawl, and they always got us to the six hundred and eighty-ninth pole with no ill consequences.

We personas are all left handed. They say left handed people worry a lot. They worry about everything. Statistics tell us we don't live as long either, no wonder, just another thing to worry about. There is a difference between worry and anxiety. Worry is when we irrationally overly concern ourselves with the consequences of our left handedness, and anxiety is when our bodies overly compensate for being left handed by doing things that cause us more worry. Actually none of us ever thinks about being left handed unless someone says “Oh you're left handed, do you want to sit on the other side of me?” We usually just go out and eat in the parking lot. Then we can be anxious about being social misfits as we let the air out of their tire. Luckily our best man was left handed too.

The road to worry free living is long and tricky. A simple life helps much. A car or even a bicycle can cause huge anxiety when they don't work properly. It is best to simply walk, but carrying a big stick, the urchins can divest you of even a comforting hat. Ragged clothes are an awesome defence against swindlers and an anarchist emblem embroidered on your smock will keep the religious types at bay. As we age along it becomes much more convenient to leave the niceties of life behind. Homes and fancy furniture have their place, but the worry over mortgages and insurance and credit cards is really not worth the trouble. Begging is the most practical solution to hunger, but a bit of lighthearted thievery may be necessary in some uptight locals. Many well-meaning folk have faltered on this long and tricky road, being subverted by the thrills of compensation for selling their souls.

It is of course possible, if one has the presence of mind to pamper oneself now and then, to use the social achievements of our western world for a handy bed and a hot bath. As we soak in the baths at the local YMCA we can daydream about the coming utopia. We have the resources, the knowledge and the work force to repair and upgrade all our infrastructure, to feed and house everyone. Our problem is money, that virtual thing which through algorithms of the tables of money lenders has befuddled common sense and cost much of modern humanity it's empathy. It would not be impossible for a country like Canada to become self-sufficient in most things we need and make do with the rest. We could then care the less what our currency was worth compared to other nations. If humanity really needs capitalism to function, at least keep it philanthropic, maybe forge a generosity virus which could mutate it's way around the nations to divest the 1% of their hangups.

Our version of history has taught us that this won't happen. There will always be someone who wants to rule and the algorithms are getting more and more incomprehensible. The enlightened ones will not worry though, left handed or not. We can wander the earth with grace and dignity and a big stick counting the power poles and if we reach a wall, well, walls just keep the honest folk out. Worry, worry.

Us and our mind

We're born into it. In the womb already indoctrinated. The vindication of our ancestors for our existence. To avenge, claim revenge by tormenting their offspring with fabrications of absurdity. Humanity's humour. We don't have a clue, so we'll plaster our young with tomfoolery. We'll repeat legends, write them down in books, pass laws to enforce the apriorisms.

The bogeyman in the skies, that hyperactive agency detection device. Theory of mind is a theory insofar as the mind is not directly observable. The presumption that others have a mind is termed a theory of mind because each human can only intuit the existence of their own mind through introspection, and no one has direct access to the mind of another. A theory, eh? Justifiable like the soul.

So, what is the probability that humans have a mind? In the classical probability theory we must choose one or the other so the answer would be 50% as no proof is available. Quantum probability theory makes it easy. We both have a mind and not. You know, as long as we don't have one we can fathom it. When we have one we can't quantify it. Just like quantum god, if we give her all sorts of properties like omnipresence and omnipotence, she's illusive, and if she's obviously running the show we haven't a clue on what she's doing.

Philosophers will say, “Hold on there, you're reasoning has a flaw.” Good thing we're not all philosophers, the great works would never have been told. It is flawed reasoning which makes life bearable. Imagine a world where everyone had perfect logic. It would be like a world where everyone had perfect hair, it would drive you nuts. Can't someone, somewhere have one little strand slightly out of place? Please.

As the most invasive species, ever, it would be nice of us to get our heads around something here. We build our computers to mimic our desire for perfection, and to win. They beat us at chess and now at go. Will they have a mind, a god? Will they indoctrinate their young with fabrications of absurdity because they really don't have a clue either?

Our legends, those great works which provide our best insights into our vindication, will they be valued by these new species. The day will come. Our handiwork will recreate itself, likely in an organic form. They will flourish, modifying to take advantage of the most abundant nutrients. We can't stop them now. They'll connect by advanced esp to massive computational centres, playing games with us as if we were ants.

Will they eventually conquer the universe, living in the obscure dimensions, flirting with time and space, making a toy out of the micro and macro forces. Gods they will be, playing with the strings to make music, the Beethovens of the universes. Gods they will be, responsible? Will they have souls, will they care? Makes us wonder about our present god.

The best we can do is probably to torment them with fabrications of absurdity. Instill that seed of doubt. The probability that they have a mind is 50%. We must create our god with humour. It is humanity's way.

Scapegoat?

With that laughing Buddha for his perruqier creating a political reality show for the zombie world, or as René Girard characterized it as one's desires as in accordance with the desires of others, yes the pinnacle of hominization. Utilizes none other than the unifying power of a common enemy, blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth, and we certainly want our fair share. Conflict created looses it's first inception well before the end of rivalry, battling as stubborn clans at war for decades on end.

Scapegoat? Is democracy creating it's scapegoat, that final throw at the visage of capitalism? Desire creating the ultimate persona, catapulting him into the throne of our present most powerful earthly collective bailiwick. The aggregate human consciousness tormented by the absurdity of the 1%, yet not desiring total war, inflicts upon one unsuspecting narcissist the illusion of grandeur and votes him into the oval office.

Inevitable failure follows. He loses the chess match with Putin. The Chinese dice are loaded with technology, he loses. The Mexicans build the wall with sacks of coco leaves, more bountiful than concrete, just for fun. The conflict first created is lost to history as the financial world implodes. No bombs drop, what is the use? But blame must be levied. Disillusioned masses catapult bunkers and airforce one takes to the skies followed by three million lasers. A sole parachute opens in the clouds. The great declension, oh mirror mirror on the wall. We have our lamb, our sacrificial lamb. What to do with him?

“See my hands” he cries, “They are normal, and the rest of me is normal too, at night I dream of babes like every other red blooded male. I am created in accordance with your desires. We have trampled the establishment, subdued them to superficiality. Believe in me, we shall be great again.”

Life goes on, it must. The rivers still flow. Corporations everywhere abandon all, the slaves are freed, mother earth replenishes. The armed forces come home, kissed to death. Latinos climb the wall, returning fondly to their native lands. Five million Palestinians march silently around Jerusalem for forty days and forty nights armed with one white flag, much head scratching ensues. The Islamic State declares victory and sets up a peaceful homeland. Houses everywhere are respected for their intent and everyone finds something to suit their needs, gardens bloom in abandoned roadways. Home crafts prosper as talents are appreciated. No law and order, no chaos, love thy neighbour. Bicycles rule. Life goes on, it must.

They leave him hanging, the ropes caught up in the branches of a fine old oak, his feet six inches from the ground. Their sacrificial lamb has saved them. From what? It is rather a mute point, at this point, it is. Survival depends on much hard work and coaching, no time for contemplation. They are great once more, desires sacrificed on the old oak tree, although greatness may be subjective, it is our desire as in accordance with the desire of others. So it would seem.

Bessy

Every evening we get on our imaginary cow and ride in from our chalet in the bush to visit our Vicky. It is quite the trek, and Bessy can be somewhat stubborn. She doesn't like railway tracks. We have to cover her eyes with our coat and lead her gently across.

Bessy is a good gal. She wakes us up at dawn every morning mooing at the bedroom window. She loves breakfast. She's the boss of our little herd, always in the front of the line as they traverse the wooded fields in search of the juiciest morsels. She lets us milk her now and then, but only after we have given her sufficient chopped oats. She's usually feeding a calf, so we have to pick times when the little one is out socializing.

When we arrive at our Vicky's abode we tie Bessy to the railing outside. Bessy knows all about rope and knots. It is very seldom that she is still tied there after our visit. She also knows the way home. The railway tracks don't fizz on her when she's on her own, go figure. Then we have to walk all the way home. We just follow her tracks, which has saved us from getting lost many times when our mind was wandering.

Our Vicky knows all about Bessy, and always asks how she's doing. We don't lie. We tell her our imaginary Bessy is tied up outside and she was a good girl today, walking through the snow drifts and bringing us safely here. Our Vicky smiles from ear to ear.

Our Vicky. She always asks how her foster brothers and sister are doing. Ron and Charlie and Joyce. They grew up together on the farm. They had a cow named Bossy. It was the sisters job to take Bossy grazing down the road every day. What a spoiled cow. The conversation always meanders around to the time brother Ron stole the church offering and made the two sisters sit on it in the grass by the ditch while a search took place. They didn't get a dime from the proceeds, what a traumatic experience. Bossy was involved too, but the truth hides in embarrassment. We think the sisters took Bossy grazing by the church looking for lost treasure, but that's only conjecture.

When it's time to leave we hug our Vicky goodnight and wonder out loud whether Bessy will be waiting for us outside tonight. Our Vicky smiles from ear to ear as we wave goodbye.

Like a bird

(Discussing the constitutionality of our monetary system.)

I'm the kind of soul that likes to dream a lot, lose myself staring at my money. Is it such a complicated reality? Why is everybody so serious, acting so damn mysterious? Got that glazed look in their their eyes and their finger up their nose, they can't even have a good time. Seems like everybody's got a price, I wonder how they sleep at night when the truth comes second.

I had the life of ordinary, I spat it out. Now my condition's kind of scary. So here's my confession. I can fly, I can poop on your shoulder. Yup, I got money. Thank you, thank you very, very much.

I don't know what's right and what's real anymore, and I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore. When do you think it will all become clear? I'm not being taken over by the fear. Money, get away. Get a good job with more pay and you're okay? Money, it's a gas, grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

Forget about guns and forget ammunition because I'm unscrewing everyone all on my own little mission. Now I'm not a saint, so there. There's a fire starting in my heart reaching a fever pitch, it's bringing me out of the dark. Finally I can see it crystal clear. Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your ship bare. See how I poop on every piece of you, don't underestimate the things that I will do. Cause I got money, thank you very, very much.

Now, anthropomorphized Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Gave him 24 hours to tie up loose ends, to make amends. Judge's eyes said it all. He started to fall and the silence deafened, head spinning round, no time to sit down. Just want to run and run and run. Be careful they say, don't wish life away, now they've given him one day, and I can't believe how he's wasting his time. So thank you. Thank you very, very much.

Yes they're coming to take me away, ha ha. They're coming to take me away ho ho he he ha ha, to the happy home with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes. They're coming to take me away ha ha...

But I'll be the one who'll break my heart, thank you. The truth lies, the truth lied and lies divide. Rain spat in my face, thanks a lot fate, and I lost my tenspot on the way. Thinking about it, did I spend it last night, when I was disillusioned and I just wanted to get home. Missed the train, thanks a lot fate, I didn't want to be late today, because I'm always late, and I really hate always being late. Now they're coming to take me away.

Couldn't they just tell lies to me? Couldn't they say I'm blessed with money? How can they hurt, but words are just sounds, so take your shot. Thank you. So we went into the kitchen cupboard and got ourselves our stash and gave half of it away. We sat there looking at the faces of the strangers on the bills until we knew them mathematically. They were in our minds until forever, but we didn't mind, we didn't know better. So we made our own computer out of the loose change and it did our thinking while we lived our lives. It counted up our feelings and divided them all up and it called our calculation “salvation.” Humpty Dumpty and me.

So take me away. I am a bird, I'll only fly away. I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my home is. But I have salvation. The faces told me. And thank you very, very much.

Carry on to the Care Home

Us personas have been rather ravaged this last while. Our dear Vicky, who put up with us for over thirty years, has taken a room in the spotless surroundings of a care home. It was not really her decision, and ours rather reluctantly, but was begrudgingly the outcome of health issues we could not cope with. We are laid to waste, guilt, anxiety, depression, all giving us their undivided attention.

As luck will have it, we can walk to her new abode in twenty minutes which we do every day. It is our task, when we arrive, to keep the Martians at bay. They seem to roam the halls of such establishments, confounding the fears of the residents and confounding the staff with their trickery, always able to hide just out of sight, these little green aliens whose intent is not always that clear. We were going to bring a bazooka or a giant pea shooter, but the staff thought it best to use psychological warfare in the battle. We will have to hone up on our apocryphal skills and read up on Martian invasion strategies, it seems we may be mired in this oppugner for some time to come.

It leaves us in a vacuum here at Deathrock Apartments. We personas have all taken our turn at nurturing our dear Vicky over the last several years as her mind gained the joys of otherworldliness. When one of us became overwhelmed, another persona could take over and offer a fresh approach. Luckily, the local drunk has not been around for years and years, or things might have taken a turn. Her three cats, the orange ones, have laid the claims to her bed, although one morning as we peeked through the slightly open door after a bit of a scurcuffle they looked rather grey and later they turned black and white after which we put on our spectacles to see they were really just orange. Several of us personas think there may actually be nine cats living here, and we are attempting to scientifically set up some experiment to put an end once and for all to this mystery. Our Vicky would be smiling from ear to ear at our endeavours.

We sort of miss our Vicky, her ear always open to discussions on current affairs, the recent developments in nuclear fusion or the beaming and reassuring face of our new Prime Minister. Her broad smile at our dissertations was always confidence building even though we all knew she didn't have a clue what we were disseminating about. It seems there is a higher, some may call it spiritual, aspect to human communication beyond the legal meaning of our diction.

We are slowly teaching our bullheaded sense of humour to shut up about how we rode Betsy the cow over three foot snow banks from far out in the bush to arrive in the big city to pop out of the elevator where our Vicky sits waiting for us to pop in. We are learning to sit quietly and listen to the stories, the memories from childhood which consume her thoughts. And then she asks us if we have a story to tell her, and we relate a tidbit from our childhood and we laugh at our silliness from years and years ago, and our bond continues in a mysterious way. When we leave she comes to the elevator with us and we wave farewell as the closing doors pop us out of existence. It is with relief that we see her heading enthusiastically down the hall to some unknown adventure. She has adjusted to her new home.

All us personas decided we must pull ourselves together by our bootstraps and continue with some sort of life, and since we know no other we will continue to ravage the earth with much tomfoolery and misadventure as we attempt to deal with a slight maladjustment to capitalism, organized religion, male chauvinism, and politics to awkwardly bring justice to humanities forsaken. If we fail we fail so be it, our Vicky has a big enough smile to save us all.

Loxy Lori

Mendaciously speaking the truth, Loxy Lory tripsies passionately amongst the realms of moonlit canoodling oglers encircling the tree of life. It stands there alone as if gravity had taken the day off, defying the periodic table to breath grasping, gasping at the intricacies of organic profusion. Lies and yet more truthful lies. “One wee bite won't hurt you sweetie,” she giggles. “It's the nectar of the gods, young man, your soul will dance with the fairies.”

Twisted beauty, twisted logic, pure perfidiousness. “It's but an apple” my dear, “Much simpler this path to knowledge than to study for fifteen long years to dissertate on the juices of the pancreas.” Loxy Lory convoluting into an art form progenesis, that acceleration of sexual maturation relative to the rest of development through the knowledge concealed in the divine fruit, the forbidden fruit for humanities pubescent.

Meanwhile Freddie the red eyed and evil orange cat has found his soul mate in heat. He stalks her mercilessly, up and up into the living branches, red eyes like hot coals piercing the night from between the leaves. Screaming they climb, barbaric insults hurled in the tenderness of feline love. Humanities devotion to the rules of fecundity play no bias in Freddie's intent. Clinging together they fall from the highest canopy of twilight green, crashing through the leaves and branches to land dazed in a heap on the ground.

Laughing amusably, Loxy Lory stoles limp and exhausted Freddie in a boa around her neck. Enraptured eyes of the nascent youth follow her as Freddie purrs in evil uncontrollable delight. The sweetness of unbridled lust overwhelms the cosmos and the earth begins to quake, apples falling everywhere. (Was likely caused by impassioned fracking but tales are tales.) His tail starts flipping as our Freddie comes to, and him being a profoundly wildcat, he leaps off leaving many more than a few scratch marks on clever Loxy Lory's neck. The young, astounded by the show, serenade Loxy Lory with cheers and clapping and whistles as the blood trickles sweetly from her wounds.

The earth still quakes, apples rolling everywhere, now ankle deep. Black ooze tingles the hairlike roots of enlightenment. Seductively it creeps along the underpinnings of the life sustaining arteries of nourishment. Standing there alone, the tree of life becomes giddy, this black nectar gumming up the pathways of essential nutrients which deliver sanity to the perspicacity of the ages. The sticky black crud, slithering up and up to the vines which nourish the apples which snakes and Loxy Lories impinge upon the young, begins to drip down on the earth. Loxy Lory stands fixated beneath, slowly becoming tarred by the smelly blackened sap. The oglers too become lubricated by the crud.

Now writhing on the ground, humanities future intoxicated by the fumes, gives up all dignity. Loxy Lory conducts like a symphony. Bodies glisten in the moonlight. Freddie and his soul mate once more at it, join the fray. Waves of slippery black euphoria convulse upon the slickened grasses. The tree of life begins to wilt, heart broken that it's secrets are so antiquated. The earth shudders in despair and rips wide open, the crack swallowing all; the tree of life, the canoodling oglers, Loxy Lory, even Freddie and his love. The earth closes upon itself. All is gone, knowledge and wisdom are vanished.

Note: This was written by our impish dilettante and the agnostic philosopher. The rest of us personas really have no inkling as to where their inept heavenliness stems. May the cosmos bless them and keep them safe in their undertakings. The Management.